Started bodywork on girlfriends car...
 

here are pictures... will have plenty more...


look at dent in passenger door... and progress being fixed...

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dont worry... the dent wasnt all filled in with bondo...

we used a stud welder to weld studs to the deeper dents, attached slide hammer for my girlfriend to pull steady while i worked out the dent stretching it back into place and getting rid of high spots... all the work was done from outside the door. i got the door pretty much knocked back in shape and only used the bondo stuff for filling the smaller stuff where metal quite wasnt right. personally, i dont think it looks too bad trying to mess with the bodyline was a pain though...

here are more pictures of the driver door and driver rear quarter.... i need to get a picture of driver door primed... it got dark out and unable for photo opportunity.

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stupid weather... it is raining today, so no progress today. yesterday the girlfriend had work and then we were in a car show with her car. makes it interesting when people see under the hood of her car and say that aint stock and stuff... people would walk by and not pay attention to the car because it dont look like much because it is work in progress, then they see the engine and come over and gawk. next car show my Grand Marquis will be in also but in partial primer unless i do a quick paint job and clean her up under thew hood. i will be back on later today with car show pictures....

Nice work on the body. I'm gonna start a similar project soon. A 1979 F250 crew cab 4x4 with a 460 swap

i recently did some body work on my 1987 Grand Marquis... i also did a bumper swap to have the slotted type opposed to the solid faced. now all i have to do is channel the air flowing in the bumper up to my CAI filter setup

awesome nice love the wheels im going to remove my vinyl in the winter time when i get a beater

here are pictures of the progress on my Grand Marquis... forgot that i took some and didnt post ...

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hahah sandy i love that hahaha i though i was the only one who named my grand marquis

my girlfriend's car is named A.F. (Aunt Flo because its bloody red
my Grand Marquis is Sandy
my 2 door 1987 Crown Vic is Deuce
the parts 2 door Crown Vic is Beep Beep
and girlfriends son's 1986 Grand Marquis is named Cocoa....

we also have our Geo Storm... Stormy
and girlfriend's deceased fathers 1979 Chevy van Scooby Doo Psycho Killer Van... because occasionally the driver door opens.

wow awesome im one of 2 grand marquis around my area but i call mine the general also just wanted to ask you if i put a straight pipe with no resonators and hollow cats and with or with out flow-master 44's am i going to burn my engine ive herd my friend say that but i never herd that just wanted to get you expert advice P.S wish i had a girl friend who loves grand marquis every one looks at it like its old

i would try the junkyard for a H pipe from a TownCar, Grand Marq, or a Crown Vic with dual exhaust... you will let the car breathe easier doing what you want, but wont sound right being straight pipe. some back pressure helps with the torque to get these cars moving. reason the X pipe is less restrictive, but less torque compared to a H pipe... my 2 door i am building up will have BBK shorty headers connected to a BBK offroad X pipe that i already have and stowed away. to give the car a lil lower tone to the engine, also get a CAI like what i have and find a HO upper plenum from a mustang or mark7 and put on. it helps the breathing and exhaust will help exhale. too much exhaling from the car will cause loss or torque but wont hurt engine.

k great thanks cause now i have my headers my cat and thats it the rest fell off when i was getting on the highways and i gave her **** then CLANG but ever since that its starting to burn ALLOT of oil guess its the exhaust

well... here is an update... girlfriend will be driving my car over weekend and wants me to take her car to friends to do more bodywork. she wants passenger side finished and roof if possible. last couple days while she was off wwork, it was raining. over the weekend it is supposed to be nice with next chance of rain being tuesday or wednesday next week.

cool im thinking of a paint scheme for my grand marquis all the doors and roof white the rest black ill try to make it look like a cop car with the lights and sounds

well, the girlfriends car is in 95% primer. still have to get a few lil areas sanded and primed. Friday May 15th it is getting new vinyl put on. i have the chrome removed to save on cost for the vinyl guy and will be pulling the vinyl and prepping for the new top. also have paint purchased. the original paint was code 2H. we went with 2G since it is exact same color except has metal flake added to paint. it was same price to have that upgrade as to get the original color. the car will look like a dark sparkling red wine when finished. i will have to wait for rain to let up and i will get pictures of the car stripped of the chrome and vinyl. in about 2 weeks, the car should be painted hopefully.

on a side note, the guy helping the girlfriend and me with the work offered me a job doing bodywork since he likes my attention to detail. he said it would be like college but getting paid instead of paying. another benefit from the job is he said i could work on my own car.


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awesome looks good cant wait for the new paint job and i love the bottle of mountain due hahah you do very good work

well... i have started block sanding the car. wont be long till paint is put on... the car also has new vinyl on. below are pictures... you can see my tan Grand Marquis in the background and my girlfriend sons brown Grand Marquis

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they did a great job with the vinyl. my 88 sure could use some new paint, vinyl, interior upholstry, dash, ... ok... all the cosmetics. The only problem with that is I can't get the door mouldings any more for this one and the clips are extinct. dern one-off year.

WoW look really good like the color of the car and vinyl

car is still in primer... the paint will look about like the vinyl... we are going original paint color with lightly added metal flake

Slymer... what clips and stuff you talking about? and what moldings? if you are talking about the rubber strips on doors, JC Whitney might have some and i am gonna be going to junkyard and ripping some cars apart for some things i need.

the lower door mouldings from the 88. it's from the 88 sedan ONLY. The clips are plastic buggers that break when you try to remove them from the mouldings. like I said. nobody carries them any more and short of someone figuring out the way to get them off a car without destroying them, there's no way to source them any more. the clips have little locking tabs that keep them in place once they are on the car. so either there is a way to remove the mouldings from the clips and then remove the clips from the car, or the idea was to break the clips and replace them when messing with the mouldings. I haven't figured out the former because from what's happened to my car, the latter has happened despite my effort to do the latter.

oh right... passenger side doors.

started on some paint.... did the under side of the hood and marbelized painted the inset areas... first base coated, than masked and papered....

after that, sprayed silver marblizer and saran wrapped to get the effect. then went over that with transparent candyapple metallic red. once that was sprayed, pulled the masking off and basecleared. after baseclear was tacky, hit with final clear. baseclear was to make it tacky to avoid runs from final clearing.

here are pictures of how i did under the hood....

http://www.grandmarq.net/vb/attachme...6&d=1243132180

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nice... did you notice the date/time is wrong on your camera?

awesome starting to look really good. Also about the door molding clips when you try to take them off will they break??? so how would i be able to put them back on

that's only for the 88 mgm that I have. they used a different clip on the 89-91. That one is able to be re-used if I remember correctly. But it doesn't fit my car.

actually... from looking up ford parts for the years of 88-91, it looks like the door mouldings are the same for all years. which means they probably all have the same clips. there should be a way to pull the mouldings off the clips without breaking them, but I haven't figured out that trick yet. I'm thinking of just drilling holes in my doors and using some t-bolt moulding clips to get them back on my car.

ohhhh cause im starting to sand and prime my car i guess i shouldn't take off the moldings yet and how do you take off the front and rear door panel my rear windows dont work and my drivers side i have to help it down?

the door panel is just a BUNCH of screws. any screw you can see, take it out. once those are out, you should see the rest of the bolts on the door handle/rest area that hold it together. take those out. some folks also take the handle off, this helps with clearance issues but is not always needed. then once all of that is off or hanging, the panel should pull off. it's mounted to the door with those @#$% push clips. they go in easy, but are sometimes a booger to get out if you don't have a removal tool. Then you get to peel off the plastic covering most of the door and you'll have access to the innards. Most likely the window issues will be those silly nylon plugs in the motor (I replaced mine with ball bearings) that tend to disintegrate. the one you have to help down may be a different issue.

as for the door mouldings... if I ever find out how to remove those without breaking the clips, I will post pictures and instructions. But considering I don't live near a junk yard and don't want to practice on my car, I don't think that will happen any time soon.

hey thanks for the door info but for the clips i noticed that 87_crown_vic on the red vic it has no door moldings so i guess even if they come off and you cant put they back you can patch the holes but what if you unclipped them from the inside door panel i have no idea but maby its possible

on the 88-91, they're not adhesive strips like on the 87s. they aren't through hole clips either. they're plastic clips that snap onto little pegs that jut out from the door itself.

on page 52 of the pdf (page 196) at car-pak... here you can find part 90-6785 half way down on the left. That's the clip I need to fix my car. the moulding is the same on 88-91, I'm not real sure about the clips themselves though. the clip you see in the pdf, has a center hole for sliding the peg into that is on the door. than the bottom of the moulding fits over the tab there at the bottom and then it is snapped over the top. however, removing it that way has proved to break the tabs at the bottom before it will come off the top. I'm thinking the plastic is just too brittle from age which is why I'm contemplating using T-bolts like the part to the right #67-3084. if it'll fit top to bottom inside that metal area of the moulding, I can drill out the door to make that work.

are you talking about the white plastic tabs like what hold the black rocker strip in place??? if so, i have a few from removing the black strips from the car being painted. easiest way to remove the black strip is a 3/8 deep well and taking nut off the clip in front of back tire... after that the black strap snaps off. once black strip is off the metal studs are visible to slide the plastic snaps off.

the only bolt on mine is the set screw on the edge of the door that keeps the whole thing from sliding. the ends are molded plastic into the rubber and holding the center metal/chrome piece in place. there are no nuts anywhere to speak of.

i plan on ripping off the moldings off on my personal cars since they do nothing but collect sand, salt and dirt causing RUST. i am gonna remove chrome and do a lower section different color and wrpped in the invisible shielding stuff to keep rock chips from happening.

i am yet in the process of cleaning up the body on my merc but i still debating on either keeping the side moldings or ripping them off and make it look like the red crown vic.

if I was more about doing the body work to smooth out the doors, I might do that... but I pretty much bought it to drive it until it's dead (which will hopefully be a few more years and then some).

i bought mine knowing that i will always have it going to keep this car forever im still driving on the original motor going to see how long that takes for it to die and i don't have a soft foot. It's been taking a beating but still pulls through every day and you have to respect that i don't know about you but i'm attached to my car (yes i no i sound crazy) but to be honest its the only this that hasn't let's me down yet

I'm always attached to my car... but it's like a pet to me. once it dies (repairs are more expensive than a newer car), then I "bury" it and move on. I may grieve a while on the loss, but yeah... and you don't sound crazy. you sound like every motorhead I've ever known.

to me the car isn't a pet more like ummm . . . . seeing the sun every day or the moon at night it just has to be there if the engine need a rebuild ill get a rebuild or what ever but i love that car more then some of my friends. No one touches it, no one leans on it, when im at a restaurant i make sure i can see it and it some one is opening there door next to it i get up and make sure they don't hit it. That happened once and got up and ran to stop them getting out made a little nick in the door but you see im nuts lol

heh... one guy in my apartment complex parks his truck between two spaces (one is a quarter full of mail boxes for the complex) and puts out an orange cone in front of the half open (sometimes 3/4 open) space so people won't ding his truck.

Let me ask you this... do you detail your car every day in the garage with high dollar wax that makes it almost impervious to most daily activities? If so, then yeah, you're nuts. if not, you're a super car buff that has his prize possession, nut you're not real nuts... a little? maybe... but not real nuts. ;-)